About

Alumnae Theatre Company, in cooperation with the City of Toronto, has called the old Firehall No. 4 our home since 1972 when our members renovated and restored this unique building (built in 1905) that sits on the corner of Berkeley and Adelaide Street East.

But the company started long before that. It was in 1918 that a group of enterprising women graduating from the University of Toronto banded together under the name The University Alumnae Dramatic Club to form one of the city’s first theatre companies, and stage their first production: an English translation of Molière’s Les Femmes Savantes.

During the development of Toronto’s theatre scene in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, The University Alumnae Dramatic Club — now renamed Alumnae Theatre Company — staged the Canadian premieres of such works as Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Ionesco’s The Lesson and Pinter’s The Caretaker. Over the years, many Canadian theatre artists have honed their skills on our stages, including Herbert Whittaker, Martin Hunter, R.H. Thomson, Molly Thom, Drew Carnwath, Shirley Barrie, Kelly Thornton, Mallory Gilbert, Sue Miner and Richard Easton.

Our mandate is threefold: to produce works that offer strong roles for women; to produce works that are not often seen in Toronto; and to produce works written by Canadians. And whether it’s the mandate, or whether it’s the shows, or whether it’s due to our joyful, unadulterated tenacity, Alumnae Theatre Company turns 100 years young in February 2018!

In our 90th season (2009/10), we started a “Countdown to 100” – the lineup of each season that followed included a re-mount of a play from our glorious past – and we have nine decades to choose from! In the 100th anniversary season of 2017/18, we celebrate our roots by programming plays that are all written and directed by women.

Our company motto is Play Like Girls, and membership is open to all women who love theatre. You don’t have to be an alumna of U of T!